"Your room is so messy," Ruby commented.

I rolled my eyes. "You were in here like two days ago."

"Yeah, and two days ago, I told you how messy it was. You should really clean it up, you know."

"I'll do it in a bit."

"You said that two days ago too."

I pulled up a chair from the corner of my room, and turned it around, sitting on it backwards. Ruby then went over to the bed and sat on that.

"All right, Ruby. You said you wanted to talk, so let's talk."

Ruby muttered something under her breath, probably thinking I wouldn't hear. Too bad for her, I heard it clearly.

Just for good measure, I said, "What?"

"I said, 'I thought you would try to delay it'," she said. "I didn't think you would get straight to the point."

"I just want to get this over with. As far as I'm concerned, we just have to clear up a few misunderstandings, and we're done."

"Right… So how do we do this again?"

"How do we do what? You're the one that came to me, you know."

I inwardly rolled my eyes. Of course she hadn't come prepared. If I were her, I would have prepared a whole list of things to say. Things to ask.

"You know, I used to think I knew you best," she began. "That no matter what happened, or who came into our lives, that I would know you best out of all of them."

She paused. I stayed quiet.

"And then… and then that happened. You, who I was supposed to know best, showed me a side of you that I didn't know. You- with those white fang members… you were ruthless."

There it is again. That word. Ruthless. I had heard it used to describe me twice now. Once from the news reporter, and now from Ruby. I was seriously starting to dislike the word.

"It was necessary," I said. "They were criminals, and-"

"It was not necessary."

"I-"

"You're strong, Rory. Really strong. Hell, you're stronger than Yang. You didn't have to be that violent when fighting them."

Interrupting me, I thought. But I didn't say anything out loud about it.

"Ruby, the worst I did was shoot someone in the stomach. It's not that bad."

"See? That. 'Not that bad'. Rory, it is bad. You didn't shoot him while his Aura was up, you shot him while it was down. While he was vulnerable. He could have bled out."

"Ruby, he was a criminal. And while I wasn't trying to kill him, I wasn't trying to do minimal damage either. I just attacked him the easiest way there was."

"Then what about the hostage? Why did you say that?"

"You know why I said that. It was a distraction, Ruby, so another huntsman could come."

"Yeah, but did you have to say it like that? You could have-"

"You're just unnecessarily drawing out the conversation." She didn't say anything. I sighed, "Ruby. We're going to be huntsmen in two years. Being a huntsman means more than killing Grimm; being a huntsman means we have to protect the civilians. And more often than not, other people are the ones hurting the civilians, and it'll be our job to take care of them. People are going to get hurt."

"I know that but… it just seemed so out of character for you. You didn't… you didn't have to hide it from me. You could have told me."

She's more concerned about the fact that she didn't know that side of me, rather than the morality of my actions, I realized. Evidently, she was concerned about both, but it was the former more than the latter.

"Ruby," I said, my tone softening. "I wasn't trying to hide anything from you, okay? I was just prepared. Those were actual criminals, Ruby. You can't go easy on them."

You're a criminal now, too, a darker part of me said.

I ignored it, though, focusing on the situation instead.

She nodded, wordlessly.

I sighed. It looked like she wasn't going to say anymore. I opened my arms, and gave her a slight smile.

She nodded, and hugged me, grabbing on tighter than normal.

Well, that went better than I thought it would.

Roman Torchwick

"Where do we put these?" One of the faunus asked.

"Over there," Roman scowled, pointing. "How many times do I have to tell you? After one truck fills, load them into the next one. Stupid mutts"

The faunus said something under his breath, most definitely something hateful, but nodded nonetheless.

It was unfortunate that he had to have such stupid henchmen, but it was still his best option at the moment. The White Fang members were convenient to work with.

He watched as the White Fang members filled each truck, crate by crate. It didn't take long before all the trucks were completely filled.

"We're done," one of the faunus said, coming up to him.

"What are you waiting for, then? Take them to the location I sent you."

The faunus scowled hatefully at him but didn't say anything. She couldn't. Nodding her head, she turned around and passed the order to her fellow faunus. They obediently walked into the driver's seat of each of the trucks, driving them away.

He wasn't too worried they would run off with them. They were with the White Fang, and unless the White Fang was planning to betray him, he didn't think they would do anything sneaky. And besides, even if they did, the White Fang benefited from doing this little partnership with him, so that lowered the chances even more. It wasn't too much dust anyway.

Another theft. Success.

From his right pocket, he took out his scroll and dialed in a number. Three rings later, and a feminine voice came through the other end.

"Yes, Roman? What is it?"

"The robbery was successful. I have the White Fang bringing it over to where you are right now."

"Good job, Roman. Thank you for telling me like I asked you to."

He almost shivered at the sickly sweet tone she had. Almost.

"No problem, Cinder," he replied, trying to fit as much sarcasm into his tone as he could.

"When is your next theft? Soon, I hope?"

"Yes, soon. In two days, actually."

"That's good. Well, I have things to do, and I can't talk forever. Make sure you don't ruin my expectations."

The call cut and Roman took a deep breath of relief. It was honestly scary talking to that woman, with how much power she had.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose. It'd been a long day, and it was time to get some rest.

Two Days Later

Roman walked towards the destination, his henchman following behind him. In front of him was a small building. There was a sign in front of the building that said 'Dust!' and inside there were glass display cases with multicolored crystals inside them.

He walked towards the store and gestured for his henchmen to follow him. Opening the door, he looked around the dust store and smiled.

"Lovely store," he commented.

"Yes, thank you-" the store owner stopped talking, and widened his eyes in fear when he looked up.

"Hands up," his henchman said.

"I- yes." The store owner complied immediately.

"Tie him up," Roman commanded.

They followed his instructions immediately, wrapping some rope around the store owner, tying him up.

"Collect all the dust. Do it quickly – we don't want to get caught."

They nodded and got to work. They gathered the dust crystals in their bags, not leaving a single one. Roman stayed where he was, keeping an eye on all the exits. They hadn't made any sound while coming, but you never knew when someone would-

"Ahhhh!"

Roman's head darted towards where the scream came from. One of his henchmen was against a wall, a knife through his hand and into the wall. Suddenly, someone dropped from nowhere in front of the henchman.

Where did this person come from? He thought he had kept an eye on all the places where someone could come in.

The henchman glanced at him, and then turned to his hand, screaming. He tried to pry his hand from the wall, but before he could get anywhere, the mysterious person punched him in the face and through the wall.

The mysterious person turned towards him, and Roman finally got a good look at his face. Well, not face – he was wearing a mask. His mask was all white with red rings around the eyes. He could see the masked man's eyes. They didn't hold much emotion behind them – a complete calm.

Roman forced his voice to be calm. "Get him."

The rest of the henchmen charged.

The masked man waited. Roman thought he'd given up, but right as the henchman came close to him, he started moving. He dodged all of their attacks flawlessly, barely any movement wasted. Skilled.

The masked man ducked under one of their kicks and grabbed the leg. He swung the henchman into another one, and both of their heads collided. The one who got hit was sent flying into the wall, and the one he used as a weapon fell down, unmoving.

Right after, another henchman attacked. This one was the strongest fighter out of the bunch. The henchman used his weapon to send a barrage of attacks at the masked man. The masked man dodged his attacks, but he didn't attack back. Roman thought it was because he couldn't find any obvious openings.

A second henchman saw that the masked man was distracted, and took the chance. He took a blade and threw it at the back of the masked man's head.

The masked man simply tilted his head to the side, and the knife passed by him, hitting the henchman he was fighting. Immediately after, the masked man rushed the henchman who threw the blade at him and punched him in the hut, back kicking him right after.

And just like that, all the henchmen were beaten. So easily.

"Well, well, well, look what we have here," Roman mocked, clapping his hands slowly. "A wannabe huntsman?"

The masked man didn't respond. Instead, he picked up his second knife, which was on the floor, and transformed it into a gun.

"Woah, woah, no need to get hostile," Roman said. While he said that, he took out his cane and entered a fighting stance.

They stared at each other, after a second which felt like ten, Roman attacked first. He took his cane and swung at the masked man. The masked man simply dodged his attack and swung his knife at Roman's stomach. At the last moment, Roman jumped back, dodging the attack.

Roman smiled, mocking. "Close. You're goo-"

The masked man didn't let him finish, and charged at him, shooting at him in the process. Roman activated his aura and deflected the bullets. The masked man suddenly stopped where he was, and turned his gun away from Roman.

What was he trying to do? Roman looked at where the gun was pointing and saw there was a Dust crystal behind him.

"Shit!" He tried to move, but it was too late. The bullet had already fired, and the Dust crystal exploded.

He was sent flying away, and there was an opening in his aura.

Shit. Was there anything he could do? He looked up and saw the masked man pointing a gun at him. No, not enough time. He concentrated his Aura around his head and his fatal areas. He would take the shot, and then escape after that. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the bullet to hit him. For the pain.

But it never came.

Instead, he heard a metallic clink.

He looked up and saw a girl with green, guarding him. She was holding an umbrella that was facing the masked man, and she had a worried look on her face.

Even though she was disguising herself with a different face and hair color, Roman recognized her.

Neo.

She gave him a gesture with her hands. Run away.

He nodded, turning around to run to the exit. Neo could handle the masked man. Roman was a thief – he made plans, he stole, he was sneaky. And while he could fight, he wasn't the best at it, admittedly. Neo, though? Yeah, she was a fighter.

As he was running, the masked man shot another shot at him, but Neo blocked it with her umbrella. Close. He ran out the exit, and a bullhead appeared out of nowhere. Thank Neo's semblance for that.

He got into the Bullhead, and went to the control panel, taking off. He would leave the fight to Neo.

Rory

Fuck. Roman got away. I'd expected to stop him here and now, but this green-haired girl wasn't expected at all.

I didn't recognize her. She had green hair and a face that I'd never seen in the show before.

Then I noticed the umbrella and started to piece together the puzzle. Roman had a teammate that used an umbrella. She also had a semblance that she could use to disguise herself…

Neo, I realized. It was Neo. So she didn't want her identity to be revealed? Or at least her face.

Neo stabbed at me with her umbrella, and I stepped to the side, dodging it. I tried to grab the umbrella, but she pulled it away before I could.

"Neopolitan, huh?" I said out loud.

Neo froze. She gripped her umbrella and glared, though there was confusion clear on her face.

Before I could say anything else, I saw her smirk, and right before my eyes, she disappeared. Shit. Where had she gone? I looked around in confusion for a second before I widened my eyes.

Her semblance. What was it called again? Overactive Imagination? If I recall correctly, it allowed her to create physical illusions that were visible to everyone, meaning she could trick cameras, too. Ugh. Pain in the ass.

I activated my own semblance, and I tried to track her location and movements. Thankfully, my semblance worked on her while she was using her semblance, and I saw her running out of the exit that Roman had used. I moved to chase her, but right as I did, a voice rang out behind me.

"Don't move! Hands up!"

I stopped where I was. Looking behind me, I saw two huntsmen I didn't recognize behind me, guns pointed at me. Was this why Neo had smirked?

"I'm not your enemy," I said, moving my gaze around to look for the best way I could escape.

"You're a criminal. We know you're our enemy," the huntsman on the left responded. He was holding some kind of sword. There was also a dust compartment in his weapon. Something to look out for.

So they knew who I was?

"Not a criminal-"

"Stop trying to trick us." This time the one on the right responded. He was holding a sniper. From what I could tell, there didn't seem to be any dust compartments in it.

They weren't even going to listen to me? Not even considering it might be a misunderstanding? I sighed. There was probably no getting through them.

My eyes darted up to the hole in the ceiling, caused by me entering in here, and I jumped. Grabbing onto the edge of the hole, I pulled myself up, ignoring the huntsmen's cries of 'get him!'. I got onto the roof, and jumped onto the next one, repeating the action.

I flared my semblance. They were just starting to chase me, meaning I had more than enough time to escape. I took a left, and entered an alleyway, hoping I'd lost them. I looked back and saw them pass around thirty seconds later.

When a few minutes passed and I was still unfound, I took a breath of relief. That had been way too dangerous. At least I'd stopped Roman, though. I hadn't expected to find him while in Vale, but it was lucky I did.

He was in the commercial district, and he'd already robbed most of the dust from here. Now with this one out of the picture, he only had three more locations to rob. If I could intercept him while he was doing it, I could push back Cinder's plans.

I sighed, taking off my mask. I took out my scroll and checked the time. 3:45 pm.

There was more than enough time to get home.

"I'm heading out today," I said, heading to the closet to get my shoes.

"Again?" Yang asked. I couldn't see her expression since I wasn't turned towards her, but I could imagine she had a smirk on her face.

"Yes, again," I said, rolling my eyes. I grabbed my shoes.

"You've been going out wayy too much lately. Seems a bit out of character."

"People change, Yang. Who knows, tomorrow I might decide I never want to leave the house again."

She didn't say anything. I slipped my shoes on and tied the laces. When I turned around, I saw Yang with the same smirk I imagined her to have.

"You can trick Ruby and Mom, but you can't trick me, Rory."

I groaned. I already knew where this conversation was going.

"It's definitely a girl. One hundred percent. I'm sure."

"It's not," I said, groaning. "Why are you so insistent about that? If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you want me to have a girlfriend."

"Who says I don't?"

"Yang, it doesn't take a detective to find out you don't want me to have a girlfriend. Me and Ruby. You don't exactly try to keep it a secret either."

"It's not like I don't want you to have one! It's just that, if you bring a girl back home, she's going to have to go through my sister-detector first. If I find out she's going to hurt you, then she'll have to say bye-bye." She waved her hand mockingly to display the 'bye-bye' part.

"Yeah, whatever. Anyway, I'm leaving now. Bye."

"Byee."

I exited the house, sighing as I did.

Today I would be going to the commercial district again. I'd gone there for the last three weeks, mostly just looking for things to stop, but two weeks ago, I ran into Roman. It was part of the reason I'd gone there in the first place, so it was lucky. I hadn't captured him successfully, but I stopped the robbery, so that was good enough.

After that, I met him twice. The first time was when he was trying to rob another store. Again, I'd met him purely by chance. It went mostly similar to the last time, I tried to capture him to give to the authorities, but he got away before I could get to him. Though, Neo hadn't come the second time. He got away on his own. The third time was the real special one. I'd met Roman again, but instead of fighting, he told me he wanted to talk to me. Hesitantly, I stopped to listen to him. He told me to come to a warehouse somewhere in the commercial district. He gave me some pretty vague coordinates, but he said I wouldn't be able to miss it once seeing it.

I entered the airbus, and sat in the front seat, where I always sat. I looked out the window and watched the airbus take off.

Where was he going with this? Could it be an ambush? Should I not go? I asked myself those questions so many times before this.

I wasn't sure where he wanted to go with this at all. Why would he call me to talk at a warehouse? If it was an ambush, I would be able to sense it. My semblance allowed for that. I could just activate it, and decide if it was a smart idea to go in. It was only due to that, that I decided to go in at the end.

I heard the end part of the bus announcement.

"-Commercial District!"

Grabbing my bags, I exited the airbus. Now, where was I supposed to go again? If I remember correctly, I was supposed to go near a popular coffee shop. If I went north from there, I would be able to see the warehouse.

I entered the location into my scroll and started walking. The actual coffee shop wasn't too far away, thankfully, meaning I could just walk to the location.

While walking, I flare my semblance every minute or so. It was instinctual at this point, with me using it so much to survey the area. It was one of the reasons I was glad that I had this semblance instead of a combat-based one. In my opinion, I was already fine on the combat side of things, so a semblance that helped me get all the information from the nearby area was much more useful. Though, I had to make sure to use it moderately and filter out the useless information such as pebbles and bugs in order to keep the headaches from starting too fast.

Reaching the coffee shop, I looked north and saw there was a path leading down that way. It was worn down, but it was still pretty visible. Maybe it was because the warehouse was abandoned? I settled with that conclusion.

It took only around seven minutes, and I finally started to catch a glimpse of the warehouse. Like Roman had said, it was abandoned, but I didn't think it was to this extent. It was practically falling apart at this point.

Once I got close enough to the warehouse, I activated my semblance. Two people, Roman and Neo, sitting on the sofa. Illusions? No, they were there in person. I searched for any bombs or anything like that, but again, nothing.

Seems like there's nothing. I'd really expected them to try something. For this to be an ambush of some sort. But from the looks of it, it wasn't.

Hesitantly, I opened the door to the warehouse and walked in. Upon seeing me, I saw Neo smile brightly. Roman sighed and muttered 'finally here' under his breath.

I walked up to them, and once I got close to them, another sofa magically appeared across from Roman and Neo.

I snorted. Was this supposed to be some kind of trick from Neo? To wow/scare me? Well, too bad for her, I saw it when I was checking for bombs before I came in.

The sofa was disgustingly hard, like sitting on a huge brick. Could you really call this a sofa? Felt a bit more like a wooden bench.

"I'm surprised," I said, starting the conversation. "I honestly thought there would be some kind of ambush planned over here."

"Of course not. I told you, didn't I? I'm here to talk, nothing more."

"Well, sorry for not believing in the 'most notorious villain of Vale'," I said.

"Haha, you're right. I wouldn't believe me either." He seemed completely calm. I tried to look the same, but I was afraid my real emotions were leaking through.

"So, why did you call me here?" I asked.

"First, can you turn off that pesky voice changer? It's annoying to listen to." He rubbed the bridge of his nose to emphasize it.

"Sorry, no can do. I have fa-" I widened my eyes and cursed myself for slipping that out. I casually continued, "I have people I know, and I would not have them knowing about this."

Suddenly, I saw Neo step up. In her hands was a dry erase board, and there were letters written on it. "You were going to say family, weren't you?"

Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID.

"No, I said people. People."

She started writing on her dry erase board again. "If you have a family, why are you doing criminal stuff? Are you poor?"

I opened my mouth to say something, but Roman stopped me. "You two can have your little discussion later. Right now, we have something to take care of."

Neo pouted but sat back down.

"Now, masked man… err, what do I call you? I'll just call you M since 'masked' and 'man' both start with an m."

Soo fucking lame. I mean, I wasn't good at naming, but I would be able to come up with something better than a one-letter name. Like… Maybe… Oh I know, how about… I…

Never mind, M would do.

"So, M, I honestly don't want to talk to you for too long, and I doubt you do either. So, I'll get right to the chase. I have an offer for you."

"An offer?" I said out loud. This was getting more and more sketchy as it passed. Why would Roman of all people offer me anything? It made no sense.

"Yes. To get straight to the point, I'd like you to join me."

"What?"

What?

AN: Ughhh, I'm soooo bad at writing drama. SO bad. Even the rest of the chapter feels oddly paced to me. Way too fast. Yeah, this chapter feels really weird. Well, whatever. It's written, so I might as well put it up. It's not like I'll write it much differently if I decide to rewrite it.

And don't worry, Roman didn't just ask him to join him randomly. There's an explanation for it, and it will be explained in the next chapter.

Also, M is a temporary name! It won't stay! I'll think of a better one later and switch it out.

Anyway, I hoped you enjoyed the chapter. Though, admittedly, this is one of my weaker ones.